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Going For Gold!

Would you like to help Derek Go For Gold at the 2012 Paralympics?

Private Derenalagi, who is still a serving British Army soldier, lost his limbs when the vehicle he was travelling in hit a landmine in 2007.

"It could have been difficult for somebody else to go through the same thing. I have been through the same mental hurt when I was a little kid, when I was left to survive on my own with my elderly grandmother in Nakavu where I was brought up," he said in an emotional but commanding voice when he was being interviewed by The Sunday Times in Suva.

His parents parted when he was at a very young age while attending his primary education at the then St Andrews Government School in Nadi. For eight years, he had been swimming across the Nadi River to attend classes.

As a soldier, his heart had stopped three times and at one stage Pte Derenalagi was pronounced dead by the doctors and was just seconds away from being put into a body bag to await an emergency evacuation from the battlefields of Afghanistan.

"But I have faith in God who has allowed me to be alive today to tell my stories and to encourage others to respect one another and serve God from their heart,"

Perhaps, we will see this glowing hero with a golden medal of his own after the 2012 Paralimpic Games in London where Pte Derenalagi hopes to challenge the world with his abilities to stand and compete.

Extracts taken from - Fiji Times Online
Samuela Loanakadavu
Monday, October 25, 2010